Starlight Glimmer
Starlight Glimmer is a female unicorn pony and recurring character, initially an antagonist but later a protagonist, in the series. She first appears in Cutie Markless. From Curseworld - Part II to The Hands of Time, she is Twilight Sparkle's student in the ways of friendship. As of Out of Career, she is the principal of the School of Friendship. Depiction in the Series Marks of Possession Starlight Glimmer first appears in Cutie Markless as the founder and leader of a mysterious village in which every resident has given up his or her cutie mark. As the leader of this village, Starlight has the philosophy that "true friendship" comes from being equal—no more or less talented than another—and that having special talents of any kind only leads to disharmony. To this end, Starlight uses a magical artifact called the Staff of Sameness to remove her followers' cutie marks and replace them with equal signs. When Twilight Sparkle and her friends arrive at the village, Starlight Glimmer sees this as an opportunity to spread her message of equality to all of Equestria. She leads the Mane Six to a vault of cutie marks outside the village, where she takes their cutie marks from them with the Staff of Sameness and tries to convert them over to her way of thinking. Fluttershy, the only one among Twilight's friends who appears to convert, spies on Starlight and discovers that her own equal sign cutie mark is actually makeup. Using a bucket filled with water, Fluttershy and her friends expose Starlight's secret to her followers. It is also revealed that the Staff of Sameness's ability to remove cutie marks is Starlight's own magic and that the staff is an ordinary piece of wood. She attempts to leave with the Mane Six's cutie marks but is thwarted by her former followers. Having lost her followers' faith, Starlight retreats from the village and escapes to parts unknown. In Amending Fences, Starlight hides her face behind a menu in the café scene. In What About Discord?, she spies on the Mane Six and Discord with binoculars from a bush in the park scene. Starlight makes her second major appearance in Curseworld. She uses a time spell created by Star Swirl the Bearded to travel back in time to the day Rainbow Dash performed her first sonic rainboom. When she prevents Rainbow from performing the rainboom, she changes Equestria's history, and she takes steps to ensure that Twilight and Spike are unable to stop her from doing so. As Starlight and Twilight continually clash, Starlight creates numerous alternate futures in which Equestria falls into ruin. Twilight brings Starlight with her to one future in order to show her the consequences of her actions, but Starlight refuses to accept the truth. As Twilight cannot understand why Starlight acts this way, Starlight reveals that when she was a filly, her best friend Sunburst earned his cutie mark and left for Canterlot, leaving a young Starlight without a friend and with a fear of losing potential future friends. After bargaining with Twilight, Starlight decides to allow the rainboom to occur, restoring the present day. Realizing the error of her ways, Starlight accepts whatever punishment that Twilight and her friends give her. Instead of punishing her, however, Twilight and her friends decide to teach Starlight about the magic of friendship, and Starlight feels reinvigorated with new life. The Changing Effect In Crystal to Famed, Starlight has taken up residence in the Castle of Friendship as Twilight Sparkle's pupil, and Twilight presents her with her first friendship lesson: reuniting with her old friend Sunburst. Because of her past actions, Starlight is very nervous about seeing Sunburst again. When the two finally meet again, their dialogue is mostly awkward stuttering. After a failed reunion, Starlight is convinced that Sunburst no longer wants to be her friend. However, when she approaches him later and discovers that he did not become an important wizard like she believed, Starlight learns that they both have their own histories of shame. The two then help Twilight and her friends save the Crystal Empire from an eternal winter. With their friendship rekindled, Starlight and Sunburst say goodbye on much friendlier terms and promise to keep in touch. In No Second Prances, after several attempts to make friends in Ponyville end in failure, Starlight meets and befriends Trixie. When Twilight expresses skepticism in their relationship, Starlight feels that Twilight doesn't trust her to make her own friends. However, when Trixie admits that she became friends with Starlight partly to one-up Twilight, Starlight is emotionally hurt. With Twilight's help, Starlight makes amends with Trixie and helps her in her magic show. In A Christmas Tail, Starlight is unenthusiastic about celebrating Hearth's Warming Eve and considers it no different from any other day. However, after Twilight reads her the story "A Hearth's Warming Tale", Starlight gains a new appreciation for the holiday. In Spice Up Your Life, Starlight Glimmer briefly appears helping Twilight to reactivate the Cutie Map after the events of The Cutie Re-Mark caused it to go inactive. In The Times They Are a Changeling, Starlight accompanies Twilight and Spike on their visit to the Crystal Empire to visit Sunburst and Flurry Heart. She is present when Spike's changeling friend Thorax exposes himself by accident, and she is quick to help defend Flurry Heart against the suspected changeling spy. Later, when Spike pleads with his friends that Thorax deserves another chance, his words strike a chord with Starlight, who comes to accept Thorax as a friend. In Every Little Thing She Does, Starlight excels at her magic studies, but she avoids her friendship lessons. To fix this, she takes on several friendship problems at once with Twilight's friends, in order to impress her. In an effort to make things easier, she uses the Fiducia Compelus spell to mind-control the ponies into following her orders. Unfortunately, the ponies follow her orders so exactly and literally that things quickly spiral out of Starlight's control. After Twilight helps fix her mess, Starlight confesses that she avoids her friendship problems out of fear of failing and being a disappointment to Twilight. With Twilight and Spike's guidance, Starlight apologizes to her friends for using magic on them, and she learns to address her friendship lessons more naturally. Starlight makes a brief non-speaking appearance at the beginning of Top Bolt. In To Where and Back Again, Starlight Glimmer is invited back to her old village to celebrate the Sunset Festival, and she is accompanied by Trixie out of fear of being rejected. While the villagers openly welcome Starlight back, they look to her for advice on how to manage the festival. Starlight, uncomfortable with being in a leadership role after her past actions, abandons the festivities to return home. When Starlight discovers that changelings have captured the royal princesses and taken the places of her friends, she assembles a team consisting of herself, Trixie, Thorax, and Discord to rescue them and save Equestria. Along this journey, Starlight is forced to take up the leadership role that she fears and lead her allies into the Changeling Kingdom. Due to the magic-dampening properties of Queen Chrysalis' throne, Starlight and her team infiltrate the changeling castle to destroy it and free the rest of her friends. In the castle throne room, Starlight confronts Queen Chrysalis and, using what she has learned about Thorax not needing to feed on love, tries to convince Chrysalis to change the way she leads her hive. When Chrysalis tries to absorb Thorax's love, Starlight tells him to give it to her willingly, resulting in a magical blast that transforms the changelings into colorful, love-filled creatures. Starlight extends her hoof to the defeated changeling queen in friendship, but Chrysalis refuses, vowing revenge upon Starlight Glimmer before escaping. Now more comfortable being a leader, Starlight returns to her old village to take part in the Sunset Festival. Day of the Departed Coming soon... The Pillars of Time In The Hands of Time, Starlight receives a Pink Heart of Courage for saving Equestria from Chrysalis. After Twilight struggles to come up with a plan for her after she has progressed beyond needing friendship lessons, she graduates Starlight from her pupil status. In The Hatching, Starlight teaches Trixie transfiguration and teleporting magic and inadvertently causes the Cutie Map to disappear. She uses a spell to bottle up her anger until the map is found, but it backfires once the bottled-up anger infects other ponies. Starlight and Trixie eventually recover the map, and Starlight learns not to bottle up her emotions. In Rock Solid Friendship, Starlight befriends Maud Pie, and the two form a connection over rocks and kite-flying. It is also revealed that Maud and Starlight met before during the initial founding of Starlight's village. In Fluttershy Leans In, Starlight is among Fluttershy's friends who help her build her animal sanctuary. In A Time of Traitors, Starlight is summoned by the Cutie Map to solve a friendship problem between Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. When she determines that the two sisters don't appreciate one another, she uses a spell to switch their cutie marks for twenty-four hours so they can spend a day in each other's shoes. While Starlight is confident that she made the right call at first, she ends up having a nightmare where her actions cause the sisters' dark sides to fight each other. After Celestia and Luna reconcile and put an end to Starlight's nightmare, they tell her that she did make the right call, and that her bold actions were the very reason she was called by the map in the first place. In Fame and Misfortune, Starlight helps Twilight make copies of the Friendship Journal, which are distributed across Equestria. When the readers start arguing over the friendship lessons and its writers, demoralizing Twilight and her friends, Starlight brings in two young fillies, Toola Roola and Coconut Cream, who assure them that the lessons in the journal helped them to become better friends. In Triple Threat, Starlight is present when both Princess Ember and Thorax arrive in Ponyville, Spike having accidentally invited them to visit on the same day. Starlight assists Spike in his efforts to keep Thorax and Ember separate due to Spike's fears that they won't get along. In To Change a Changeling, Starlight and Trixie pay a surprise visit to the Changeling Kingdom and meet Thorax's brother Pharynx, the only changeling to not accept the hive's new way of sharing love. Starlight and Trixie try to convince Pharynx to abandon the old changeling ways, but their actions inadvertently drive Pharynx to almost leave the hive forever. When Pharynx crosses paths with a monstrous maulwurf, Starlight manages to rally the changelings together to support him, and he is finally accepted by the rest of the swarm. In It Isn't the Mane Thing About You, Rarity asks Starlight and Twilight to use their magic to fix her ruined mane. Starlight and Twilight try their best, but are unable to do so. Starlight later joins Twilight, Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy in their attempts to comfort the distraught Rarity. In Uncommon Bond, Starlight Glimmer is eager to spend time with Sunburst when he visits Ponyville. However, she gets upset when Sunburst ends up having more in common with Twilight, Trixie, and Maud, even more so when Sunburst refuses to play their favorite board game with her. In the end, though, Sunburst organizes a pony-sized version of the game for all of them to play together. In the finale Shadow Play, after the diary of Star Swirl the Bearded is discovered by Sunburst, Twilight and her friends learn Star Swirl and his fellow Pillars of Old Equestria sacrificed themselves to trap the Pony of Shadows in Limbo. Twilight, eager to meet her idol, leads her friends to free the Pillars from their prison. Starlight voices her concerns over the project, pointing out what happened the last time she interfered with one of Star Swirl's spells. She is overruled, but proven right when the Pony of Shadows is also released from Limbo. While the weakened Pony of Shadows is forced to retreat, Twilight, Starlight and their friends plan for his return. Starlight suggests that the Pillars could attempt to reach out to Stygian, the pony within the shadows instead of banishing him again, but Star Swirl scoffs at the suggestion, claiming "once a villain, always a villain". Starlight is dismayed, and even more so when Twilight does not speak up against her idol. During the final confrontation, Starlight is once again proven right when it is revealed Stygian never meant to betray the Pillars. After the darkness is removed from Stygian, Starlight receives thanks from Twilight for reminding her of her own way of doing things. ''LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: The Movie In ''LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: The Movie, Starlight appears in a non-speaking cameo during We Got This Together, watching Trixie set off fireworks. She and Trixie also appear during the end credits. Sons of the Overlord In The Mask of Deception - Part I, Starlight is told of Twilight and her friends' adventure beyond Equestria, and she is appointed as guidance counselor for the new School of Friendship. In The Mask of Deception - Part II, she manages to get Twilight over her depression over the school being closed by convincing her to run the school her own way. She later assists the Mane Six and Spike in saving the runaway students from a group of puckwudgies, and joins them back at the reopened school. In The Jade Princess, Starlight helps Pinkie Pie with her problems with Maud's boyfriend Mudbriar and later attends Maud's birthday party. She also briefly appears in The Oni and the Dragon, as one of the potential ponies Rarity asks to run her Manehattan shop. In Dead Man's Squall, Starlight helps her friends put on a play for Princess Celestia's ones-versary. In The Quiet One, Starlight and Sunburst are called by the Cutie Map to their old hometown of Sire's Hollow, where her father Firelight constantly dotes on her and treats her like a child. She and Sunburst help settle a conflict between Firelight and Sunburst's mother Stellar Flare, but when it turns out that was not the friendship problem they were called for, Firelight gets overly involved in helping Starlight solve it. His constant doting eventually causes Starlight to explode at him in anger. Realizing her strained relationship with her father is the very friendship problem she was summoned to fix, Starlight talks it out with Firelight, and they make amends. In True Potential, Starlight counsels new school student Cozy Glow when she confesses that she failed a test on purpose in order to help the Cutie Mark Crusaders, her tutors, get accepted into the school. Through Starlight's influence, the Crusaders are made honorary graduates of the school and appointed as "friendship tutors". In Big Trouble, Little Ninjago and Equestria, Starlight joins Twilight and her friends on a "friendship retreat" despite never having camped before. When the group gets separated in the Everfree Forest, Starlight and Rarity encounter an evil copy of Applejack created by Queen Chrysalis, who maliciously makes fun of Starlight and hurts her feelings. When the ponies find each other again, Starlight is hostile toward the real Applejack, but they reconcile at Twilight's urging. Hunted In Firstbourne, Starlight is left in charge of the School of Friendship when Twilight and her friends are called away on a friendship mission, but Discord's presence serves as a constant nuisance. When his desire to be in charge puts the students in danger, Starlight banishes him from the school grounds, but he continues to torment the students as a ghost. In the end, Starlight apologizes for making Discord feel left out of school activities and offers him the position of "vice headmare". In How to Build a Dragon, Starlight serves as a mediator in the middle of Rarity and Rainbow Dash's bitter arguing, and she and Twilight come up with a fake theft of the Amulet of Aurora to get Rarity and Rainbow to work together and make amends. In The Gilded Path, Starlight accompanies Trixie on her magic tour to Saddle Arabia. While the two enjoy the journey at first, they start to argue and disagree due to the stress of the trip. One evening, Starlight accepts Hoo'Far's offer to trade his wagon for Trixie's. When Trixie finds out, she is outraged, leading to an argument that drives the two to part ways. Starlight returns some time after, apologizes for what happened, and helps Trixie get her wagon back. The two then return to Ponyville, acknowledging that they are not equipped to handle such a long journey together. In Saving Faith, Starlight appears in a photo with Twilight and in a bathtub being tossed out of a castle window by Sludge during Just Can't Be a Dragon Here. In the season nine finale School Raze, Starlight chaperones a field trip to Cloudsdale with Rainbow Dash, but her magic suddenly failing causes the students to fall out of the sky. When the Mane Six suspect Lord Tirek to be the cause of magic disappearing in Equestria, Starlight is once again left in charge of the school while they travel to Tartarus to investigate. However, she is magically captured by Cozy Glow as part of her secret plot to take over Equestria. When the Young Six work together to stop Cozy and save the school, Starlight is freed from Cozy's magic prison. ''Best Gift Ever'' In the one-hour special LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever, Starlight appears walking with Trixie before One More Day and later sharing hot cocoa with her in her wagon during The True Gift of Gifting. March of the Oni A painting of Starlight appears in the fifth, sixth, and seventh season murals at the Monastery of Spinjitzu. In The Beginning of the End: The Darkness Comes, Starlight tries to comfort Twilight when the latter gets stressed over being chosen to take over Princess Celestia and Princess Luna's jobs as Equestria's ruler, but to no avail. When King Sombra invades the Crystal Empire, Twilight assigns Starlight to take care of the school while the Mane Six go to defeat Sombra. In The Beginning of the End: Into the Breach, however, Sombra travels to Ponyville and takes control of Starlight's mind, ordering her and the rest of the citizens to invade Canterlot. After the Mane Six finally defeat Sombra, Starlight is released from his mind control. In Lloyd's Seven, Starlight is left in charge of the school while Twilight and Spike head to Canterlot to participate in the Sibling Supreme contest. In She's All Yak!, she appears in the reused final image of Curseworld - Part II during Fit Right In. In Frenemies, Starlight is mentioned twice by Cozy Glow and Chrysalis (both times referring to the latter's desire for revenge against her). In Student Counsel, Starlight becomes highly dedicated to her work as a guidance counselor, preventing her from spending time with Trixie and their friends. At Trixie's insistence, Starlight turns away Silverstream when she asks for assistance, and attends Maud and Mudbriar's party. When Terramar arrives, revealing that Silverstream didn't return home for spring break, Starlight becomes wracked with guilt, believing her refusing to help her had something to do with it. Together with Terramar and her friends, Starlight eventually finds Silverstream at the Treehouse of Harmony, studying cockatrices for a school project. Starlight also appears during CMC Appreciation Day in The Last Crusade, and on the bleachers during the buckball game in 2, 4, 6, Greaaat. Starlight gets mentioned by Sunburst in A Ninja is Born when he explains to Spike that she used to be the score keeper for Trivia Trot in the past, but quit under the strain and has resented trivia ever since. In Out of Career, Starlight is officially made the new headmare of Twilight's school, which she gladly accepts. Following a conversation with Trixie, she decides to hold auditions for a vice-headmare, which are made much more difficult by Trixie assuming she will get the position due to her and Starlight being friends. Finally pushed to the breaking point by Trixie's actions, Starlight yells at her and drives her away. After a talk with Twilight, she and Trixie reconcile, and Trixie helps her recruit the best choice for vice-headmare, which happens to be Sunburst. In return, Starlight, recognizing Trixie's talent for giving good advice, makes her the school's new guidance counselor. In The Ending of the End: The Fall, after being informed that Chrysalis, Cozy Glow, and Tirek are on the loose, Starlight works with Trixie to evacuate the School of Friendship before confronting Chrysalis in battle. She is eventually defeated and captured due to Chrysalis being empowered by the Bewitching Bell. In The Ending of the End: Endings, she escapes her confinement with Discord's help and, alongside him and the Pillars, holds off the three villains while the rest of her friends escape to find Twilight. She is also present in the final battle against the villains. In The Fate of Lloyd, Starlight attends Twilight's coronation ceremony and she and Spike gift Twilight with a book of memories before she moves back to Canterlot. She later appears as an older mare still running the School of Friendship in future Ponyville during The Magic of Friendship Grows. Rainbow Roadtrip Coming soon... Personality When initially introduced, Starlight Glimmer is openly friendly and welcoming, both toward the Mane Six and her followers. She is also somewhat of a disciplinarian, issuing punishment to those who do not conform to her philosophies. However, she later adopts a more callous and ill-tempered persona, desperate to keep up appearances and dismissing any concept of friendship that isn't the same as her own. She is also quite disrespectful, even to royalty, as shown when she furiously silences Twilight when she tried to explain how differences can make friendships stronger. In the season five finale, Starlight harbors a bitter grudge against Twilight Sparkle, mocking and belittling her attempts to stop her from altering the past. Her contempt for cutie marks is revealed to be a result of losing her childhood friend Sunburst when he gained his, giving her a distorted conception of "equality". When Starlight finally realizes how friendship is enriched by ponies' differences, she adopts a remorseful, friendlier, and overall happier side. In the season six premiere, she is portrayed as timid and easily unnerved, especially when it comes to the prospect of reuniting with Sunburst. In the finale, Starlight demonstrates an aversion to being in a leadership role due to her past actions, though she proves to have a natural talent for it and eventually overcomes her fears. From season seven onward, Starlight is more confident in herself and her ability to be a good friend. In Rock Solid Friendship, she displays a keen knowledge and interest in kites. She is also sarcastic at times, as shown in To Change a Changeling and The Mask of Deception - Part I. Starlight is frequently shown to be overly reliant on her magic to solve problems or accomplish tasks, and has a tendency to not think her plans through. She starts to overcome these faults over time and learn from them, to the point where she is the only one who questions the risks of undoing Star Swirl's limbo spell. She also has some temper issues, demonstrated in The Hatching, Firstbourne, and Out of Career, causing her to sometimes lash out or use magic without thinking. According to Cozy Glow in School Raze: Lessons of Friendship, "Starlight can't stand mustard." In her role as School of Friendship guidance counselor, Starlight shows extreme dedication to her students, including allowing them to come to her at any time in Student Counsel. Appearances LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: Masters of Friendship Season 5: Marks of Possession *68. "Cutie Markless - Part 1" *69. "Cutie Markless - Part 2" *74. "Amending Fences" *80. "Curseworld - Part I" *81. "Curseworld - Part II" Season 6: The Changing Effect *82. "Crystal to Famed - Part I" *83. "Crystal to Famed - Part II" *86. "No Second Prances" *87. "A Christmas Tail" *94. "The Times They Are a Changeling" *95. "Every Little Thing She Does" *96. "To Where and Back Again: Operation Land Ho!" *97. "To Where and Back Again: The Way Back" Specials *"Day of the Departed" *"The Best Gift Ever" Season 7: The Pillars of Time *98. "The Hands of Time" *99. "The Hatching" *101. "Rock Solid Friendship" *102. "A Time of Traitors" *105. "Triple Threat" *106. "To Change a Changeling" *110. "Uncommon Bond" *113. "Out of the Fire and Into the Boiling Sea" *114. "The Shadow Play" Movie *"LEGO Ninjago & My Little Pony: The Movie" Season 8: Sons of the Overlord *115. "The Mask of Deception - Part I" *116. "The Mask of Deception - Part II" *117. "The Jade Princess" *118. "The Oni and the Dragon" *121. "Dead Man's Squall" *122. "The Quiet One" *126. "True Potential" *127. "Big Trouble, Little Ninjago and Equestria" Season 9: Hunted *128. "Firstbourne" *129. "Iron & Stone" *130. "Radio Free Ninjago and Equestria" *131. "How to Build a Dragon" *132. "Yakity-Sax" *133. "The Gilded Path" *134. "Two Lies, One Truth" *135. "What Lies Beneath" *136. "The Weakest Link" *137. "Saving Faith" *138. "School Raze: Lessons of Friendship" *139. "School Raze: Magic Destiny" Tales from the Monastery of Spinjitzu *1. "Master Class" (painting) *2. "Green and Gold" (painting) *3. "The Weekend Drill" (painting) *4. "Elemental Rider" (painting) *5. "Blue Lightning" (painting) *6. "Samurai X-Treme" (painting) Season 10: March of the Oni *140. "The Beginning of the End: The Darkness Comes" *141. "The Beginning of the End: Into the Breach" *143. "Lloyd's Seven" *146. "She's All Yak!" *147. "Frenemies" (mentioned) *150. "Student Counsel" *151. "The Last Crusade" *154. "2, 4, 6, Greaaat" *155. "A Ninja is Born" (mentioned) *159. "Out of Career" *163. "The Ending of the End: The Fall" *164. "The Ending of the End: Endings" *165. "The Fate of Lloyd" Season 11: Rainbow Roadtrip *182. "The Winter Farewell" Trivia * Gallery B7DAF290-9A30-4E77-BD3F-2DE38D763A5B.png|Movie and Season 11 counterpart